Research Activities

Dr. Dai is a high-energy astrophysicist working on topics related to the dynamics and accretion of compact objects. She also employs computer simulations to study the accretion process and jet production around black holes. as well as tidal disruption events, which is a star tidally destroyed and devoured by a supermassive black hole. Her current research interests include: 1) tidal disruption events; 2) accretion and jets around black holes; 3) general relativistic simulations for accretion and ray-tracing; 4) extreme-mass-ratio inspirals.

Dr. Lee is a planetary dynamicist who works on the formation and dynamical evolution of planetary bodies (planets, moons, etc.) in our Solar System and in planetary systems around other stars. He is also an expert in numerical methods for dynamical simulations of planetary systems. His current research interests include the dynamics and origins of (1) orbital resonances in extrasolar planetary systems, (2) planets in binary star systems, (3) the orbital architecture of the planets in our Solar System, and (4) the satellite systems of Jupiter, Uranus and Pluto-Charon.

Dr. Lim's research has spanned a broad range of topics, including (i) stellar coronal magnetic activity, (ii) the formation and late evolution of stars in our Galaxy, (iii) star formation and AGNs in nearby galaxies, (iv) X-ray cooling flows in galaxy clusters, and (v) astrophysical applications of gravitational lensing, including weighing supermassive black holes, evolution of galaxies in the early Universe, as well as the nature of dark matter. The present focus of his work is on topics (iii)-(v). As an observational astronomer, Dr. Lim uses primarily radio telescopes (e.g., VLA, SMA, ALMA) and optical-infrared telescopes (e.g., CFHT, HST). Dr. Lim has mentored many graduate students, a number of whom have gone on to PhD programs in the USA and Europe, or have since become postdoctoral fellows. He collaborates with many astronomers worldwide, bringing international exposure to his students. Over the past 6 years, in collaboration with Prof. Thomas Broadhurst at Ikerbasque, Spain, Dr. Lim has built a strong group of undergraduate and graduate students working on gravitational lensing at HKU. Dr. Lim actively recruits talented undergraduate students for casual research in preparation for their capstone and graduate studies.

Dr. Ng studies extreme objects in our Galaxy, including magnetars, energetic pulsars, pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe), and supernova remnants. He has led observational projects using world-class telescopes in X-rays and radio, such as the Chandra X-ray Observatory, XMM-Newton, the Expanded Very Large Array, and the Australia Telescope Compact Array. He has identified a pulsar moving at an enormous velocity over 2,000 km/s. He has also developed a powerful 3D modeling technique to capture the X-ray torus and jet morphology of PWNe and to measure the structure and evolution of the supernova remnant 1987A.

Dr. Ng's latest research focuses on the magnetic fields of neutron stars and their environments. Employing X-ray observations, he measures the surface temperature of magnetars, which are stars with the strongest magnetic fields in the Universe, to understand their extreme properties and their connection with ordinary radio pulsars. In addition, he maps the magnetic field configurations of PWNe using radio telescopes, in order to probe the cosmic ray production and transport in these systems. Further information can be found at the webpage http://www.physics.hku.hk/~ncy/.

Prof. Q.A. Parker arrived at HKU in March 2015 and is intent on establishing a world-leading group in late-stage stellar evolution that includes post-AGB stars, planetary nebulae and massive star ejecta including Wolf-Rayet shells and supernova remnants. This is assisted by i) the on-going appointment of Prof. Albert Zijlstra as a Hung Hing Ying Distinguished visiting professor to HKU who is a world leader in planetary nebula; ii) the appointment of several new postdoctoral research fellows: Dr. F. Lykou, Dr. Andreas Ritter and Dr. Xuan Fang and iiii) Three PhD students. Significant contributions to this research field have been made by this strong team including two HKU press releases (see https://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/2741-planetary-nebulae and http://www.scifac.hku.hk/news/any/planebulae). Exciting research opportunities exist for additional research postgraduate students to join the group. This group also has strong synergies to existing departmental expertise in late stage stellar evolution (including supernova remnants) and to the Laboratory for Space research (http://www.lsr.hku.hk).

Dr. M. Su has a broad range of research interest, including Cosmic Microwave Background to study the Universe in the very beginning and the later evolution, observational high energy astrophysics (including gamma-ray and X-ray telescopes), searching for Dark Matter particles, cosmic ray physics (both theory and observations involving both ground-based and spaceborne instruments). We are building a CMB telescope in the west part of Tibet , which is the highest observatory worldwide! We have launched the very first Chinese astronomy satellite to look for dark matter, named Dark Matter Particle Explorer (we found some hints!). He has discovered a pair of gigantic bubbles emitting high energy of gamma-ray photons using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. He is also building satellites for dedicated space science research, including a X-ray telescope using so-called Lobster-eyed type of optics to enable the largest field of view ever, a UV telescope to help to find habitable worlds in other solar systems. He is also working on the two largest payloads onboard the future Chinese space station: a 2-meter class optical telescopes, and the High Energy Radiation Detector which is the future of the gamma-ray and cosmic-ray detection. If you are interested in studying the Universe (or the earth!) using satellites, please talk to him.

Some Representative Publications

(For the complete publication list of the department, please go back to Research.)